My sister works in space...

That is to say RAL Space...

Belinda next to the space suit of Helen Patricia Sharman. She is a British chemist who became the first Briton in space and the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991 (Helen not Belinda).
This must be the position she was in for take off. It looks very cramped and uncomfortable.

On Saturday there was an open day at the Harwell campus where my sister works. Her department is 'RAL Space' where they are involved in space missions and are at the' forefront of UK Space Research'.


People were eager to visit the new premises and there was lots to see and do.

 I loved visiting Space. The atmosphere was friendly and it was good to meet people who work with Belinda. Actually she seemed to know most people. She has worked there for twenty five years. She used to work as computer support so was involved with all departments. Now she is a project controller so continues to know what most people are doing.

These are the friendly team who work in space. I love the pink-purple T-shirts they were all wearing.

I particularly enjoyed handling rock samples from meteorites, the moon and mars. I was quite surprised when I asked how they had got the rocks, because the answer was $1000 on eBay for each of the moon and mars rocks but only £2 for the oldest rock on earth from the meteorite!

This piece of the moon is currently on sale on eBay for £9,667.96

The Harwell Campus is owned and managed jointly by Harwell Oxford Developments Ltd, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

My father worked at Harwell from about 1956 until he retired. His work was with Atomic Reactors.



My father often talked about his work on these reactors called Dido and Pluto.

 

Things have moved on and the history of the organisation is fascinating. Harwell was at the forefront of computing and as a schoolchild I visited the Atlas Computer. The supercomputer of the day. It filled several rooms and could do roughly two hundred thousand multiplications per second. The supercomputers they use today are a million, million times faster.

It was a lovely sunny day for the open day and we enjoyed wandering around the whole campus. The new buildings are fantastic and there were picture displays, refreshment kiosks and picnic areas that we made good use of.

I was keen to see the particle accelerators. Mainly because I knew they would be very big. They were VERY, VERY big and I loved them.

Inside the Diamond Light Source (Belinda wearing her regulation T-shirt)

I really like this!

We also visited the particle accelerator at ISIS (named after the River Isis) otherwise known as Target Station 2.




The beam has a long way to go while it accelerates.

I'm not quite sure what the Huge, Really Hot Oven was for.

It was pretty big, but wasn't switched on.





Better be careful where we go.

 

It was a fascinating and fun day. It reminded me of my school days when I studied sciences and was pretty sure I was destined to become a scientist. I didn't. I moved in another direction but I am really happy to think of Belinda in this exciting environment where everyone is working 'at the forefront of modern science'. Especially those who work in space!

 

 

P.S. I am reducing my blog posts to one per week (on Mondays) as two and half months on from my retirement day I am finding life pretty busy.